Barefoot Homeschooling

I have been really busy and am neglecting my blog. On the upside, though, I have lots to blog about now!

Liam is doing well with his Tae Kwon Do and absolutely loving it. He's on his second belt and working very hard in class. He's trying to correctly count to ten in Korean and knows many of the terms that he needs to learn. I think he has found a real passion for something and it is so delightful to watch him enjoy the work, practice, and class time.

Maggie is doing very well with her horse back riding lessons. She has done vaulting, learned to post, and last week tried out an English saddle for the first time. She loves going so much that she will come early and help feed the horses or stay late and muck out stalls. Her confidence in riding grows with each lesson and it's gratifying to listen to her talk about how much she loves her lessons. I have a picture of her (I need to find the ones of Liam in his class, they are around here somewhere!) riding:

We have listened to all of Volume Two of Story of the World and it has prompted some great conversations. I am trying to convince them to go through it a little more slowly and for us to do the activities in the activity book but so far they have been too involved with other persuits. I'm not giving up, though- we have Roman columns to bake and devour, battle axes to assemble, and castles to build.

My trip to Portland went really well and I had a wonderful time with my dad and brother. We went to Mount Hood and to see Multnomah Falls and also went out to the coast. The Pacific Northwest is on my very short list of places I very much want to live and perhaps one day we will have the dough to make it out there. Shan had a great time with the kids while I was gone and is wishing he could do the stay-at-home-dad thing. If I had the earning power he does I'd gladly trade, not because I don't love staying home but because I'd love for him to get the chance, too.

My brother Jeremy is, of course, home and we are enjoying having his back. It's been 7 years since he lived here and he's getting reacquainted with the area. My kids are also enjoying having him around- he's a very cool uncle to have and play with and generally to hang around. He likes acting crazy and goofy and silly and the kids relate to him really well. The whole family is looking forwards to Thanksgiving, which will be the first holiday all of us are together for in 7 years.

My weight loss is going very well, too. I am down a total of 45 pounds and I am feeling great! I have started pilates and really enjoy it. I am getting bored with my current workout dvd Crunch Pilates which really is an awesome workout complete with a hip young guy playing drums in the background. Still, you do anything often enough and it gets dull so I need something new. I've started jogging just a bit and it's not as fun as I thought it would be. My muscles have stopped protesting (which is a great feeling) but I can't figure out a way to breathe that doesn't dry out my throat. I'm only jogging about a quarter of a mile at a go but still in that short amount of time my throat gets so dry that I feel miserable. I'm gonna have to figure something out.

My Hindi classes are giving me a new respect for children trying to learn to read. I frequently feel like a bit of an idiot in class because I just freeze up about which letter makes which sound. These 6 year old kids in class are just rattling things off and I sit there just feeling my brain in vapor lock, LOL. And reading a word written in Devanagari makes my head ache because I literally have to sound things out a letter at a time and double-check to make sure I have the letters pronounced right. I have no memory of learning to read (I was reading at three) so this is all quite new and surprising to me. I guess with practice I will improve. Still I am fascinated and grateful to be experiencing this because how often do you get to learn to read as an adult and really *see* what it's like for children? Very cool and humbling at the same time.

We have a temporary new addition to our family. My best friend called Tuesday and said that a cute little dog had wandered up to the fire station where she works and was obviously a stray and did I know anyone who needed a great little dog? Which we all know is suckerese for 'come get this dog and feed it up and find it a home' LOL. So I went and she came home and I have a 10 pound ball of wonder we are calling Gia bounding around the house. The vet thinks she's about a year old which explains her puppyish behavior. She is very very intelligent and so far very easy to train. I could tell she'd never been in a car, been in a house, seen a cat, had a chew toy, been on a leash or anything like that. But she's adapting amazingly fast. I'm using the dogs' traveling crate to aid in housebreaking and even though it's been less than a week I really think she's got it down. The only accident she's had in three days was due to human error. I've contacted a local rescue to help in placing her and hopefully they will call me back today. She's healthy and heartworm negative and on flea and heartworm preventative (poor baby is flea-allergic and has chewed up her skin in places ) and generally just doing really well. I'm sure with her delightful personality and easy train-ability she'll find a home fast. I wish I could keep her but she's pretty high energy and my middle aged lazy dogs are finding her to be a handful. Percy copes just fine but Lola is feeling completely unbalanced by the little ball of energy that is Gia.

The last two months have also seen us going to Pump it Up homeschool days, fishing derbies, Native American festivals, ice cream socials, game days, India night at the local library with dancing and yummy food, story times, science classes, pumpking picking at the local pumpkin farm, movies and I don't know what all else. I guess that's about it for now. I will try and update more faithfully and not be such a stranger.

I'm reading:

Nothing of note

I'm listening:

Bollywood Hindi Hits via live365